Realtitude

As I was getting ready to switch over from my main blog page to writing, I saw the title from my last entry:  "Reality and Attitude".  Just as the page disappeared, a word came into my head:  Realtitude.  It was, of course, immediately followed by a definition:

"Realtitude (n):  The attitude of dealing with reality as we find it, not as we wish to find it."

Life is a a constant challenge to deal with as we find it.  Does this mean that we cannot change life as we find it?  Not at all - every person that has ever met with success done this.  But in the creation of their new reality (which is really what one does when one succeeds), one has to start where one is and with the tools that one has in hand. 

In other words, we must face life with realtitude.

Without acknowledging life as it is (but not necessarily accepting that reality) we cripple ourselves from moving forward in the very beginning.  It is one thing to begin climbing a long stair; it is another thing to try to climb a stair when the first four feet are missing but we pretend that they are not.

Realtitude is acknowledging that I am where I am by the choices I have made.  It is acknowledging that if I want to do something different, I have to pay the price.  It is coming to grips with the fact that life can be much more like what I want, but it is simply not that way at the present time - and no sense of wishing it better will change it.

Realtitude is not the same as optimism - or pessimism, for that matter.  Each of these proposes an outlook on life and its circumstances.  Realtitude merely seeks to establish that the circumstances one is in is really the circumstances one is in.  From there, one can begin to map out the process of growth and moving forward from the reality we are in, not the reality we wish we were in.

Get real with reality.  Get Realtitude.